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Alexa Rankings: Experts... Let's discuss!

I just wanted to know how SEOs out there feel about Alexa. I don't personally use it at all as I have read that data is not really accurate, considering they get it mostly from the "tool bars" installed on browsers... of course... mainly by webmaster, marketers etc.

Do you ever use it for anything?How do you feel about the data it provides?Do your customers ever bring it up?How do you check for Global Rank & USA Rank without going to Alexa?

2 Responses

Alexa Rankings have been around for a long, long time. At least 10+ years, as I recall. They're "useful" in that they DO show the top sites on the web in regards to traffic. Essentially, when someone who has the Alexa Toolbar installed visits a website, that info is recorded. Alexa is then able to see the highest-traffic sites on the web.

The problem here is that the Alexa rankings can be manipulated. And I have seen cases where an Alexa ranking has been manipulated. The redirect that they use to count 'hits' or 'traffic' to a site is really a URL. The more visits to that URL, the more traffic is recorded. I've seen people send 'fake' traffic to the redirect URL and artificially inflate their traffic.

Whenever a system like this can be manipulated, it questions the integrity of the whole entire system. So while the top 100 sites are most likely not manipulated, I would really question the rest and take it with a 'grain of salt'.

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